When Jesper said this to me a few days prior to coming to visit my family here in Orebro I thought he was just, well, he was just being Jesper. Jesper says stuff like this. Now, I'm not sure if Jesper is actually the magic sitar from Spectacular Spectacular, (and if you know what I'm talking about then well done) but this time anyway he was speaking the truth.
Yes, my first food shot for you all and it's a pizza with what amounts to a doner sandwich and side of fries on top of it.
Then there was the pizza with the banana and pineapple on top. Okay, I'm Canadian, I'm good with pineapple, and I was willing to make a go of the banana as there is a precedent in Swedish cuisine for the flagrant abuse of that noblest of fruit that I will get to shortly. So should be fine. Okay, now let's smother that in curry.
Back to the banana. See, straight to it. Not digressing at all. Said I would get to it, and I'm getting right to it. See. I can do this. Succinct will henceforth be my middle name. Over the coming weeks this blog will be reduced to a series of relevant bullet point factoids mixed with a selection of photographs that each say 2000 words or more. I'll then progress to writing limerics and including Ben Wicks' styled cartoons that capture the finer of my exploits. Eventually I'll get each entry down to a simple haiku and single brush stroke painting that captures a months worth of experience with such poignancy that you will weep.
Who am I kidding.
My first introduction to the oddness that is Swedish cuisine was six years ago when I was over for my cousin Jennifer's wedding. Dinner was Flying Jacob. The name alone should worry you. It starts with rice. Then chicken. Then cream. All good so far. Then peanuts. Yep, good with that. Now comes the banana. Yep, banana.
And actually, it works. It's tasty. So by the way is the fruity pizza with curry, and even the kebab pizza, though admittedly not my favourite. So yes, my limited foray into Swedish cuisine has revealed some interesting combinations that, at first glance, make you wonder what the heck they were smoking when they thought of this one, but turn out to be pretty darn tasty.
Perhaps I should try baking some ground beef in one of my shoes.
It's been nearly two weeks since we got here, and with Noah and Jake safely back in Toronto the we is now I, so I apologize for whatever confusion I am about to create as I flip flop between personal pronouns.
It's been two weeks of family. Six years ago when I came here for the wedding I had told my mom that I'd never been to Sweden before, so as much as I love my family, I'm not about to spend the entire time in my Aunt's kitchen when there is so much out there to see. A couple of days in and around the wedding yes, but the whole time, no. That worked out well and resulted in a whirlwind tour of Stockholm that my mother likely still wonders at. We saw alot.
Anyway, this time I've been quite happy to chill out in the kitchen in Orebro. Be it my Aunt's kitchen, or one of my cousins'. The guys had started school again last week so it was working well, with them being able to focus time on that each day, and me being able to focus on my homework, which was planning the next leg and sorting out travel and accommodation for our time wandering Europe.
I'm saying all of this because after nearly two weeks you'd think I'd have tons of stories to share, lots of pictures to upload, and all the other sorts of good stuff that happens when I've fallen behind in my blogging. Well, this time I don't. I've got some pictures, and I'll show you a couple, but I'm not about to plaster my family all over the blog. If you want to see lots of pictures of my family you are welcome to, you just need to come over one evening when I'm home.
My cousin Tim and I had a really interesting conversation on this topic. He and his family do not have Facebook accounts and do not post pictures of themselves or their children online. One of the big reasons for that when it comes to his kids is that he and his wife feel that it should be the childrens' choice whether they want that or not. We see this all the time, once they're online, they're there. Nothing to do about it any more. You've given up all rights to privacy it would appear as people simply do not respect it. I think Tim's direction bloody brilliant, and something everyone should stop and think about in terms of the choices we make. Everything that is happening with the proliferation of social media, and all of these "free" services we're being given, it's totally untested. We have no idea what the long-term affects of this will be. Where is it all going? We are essentially selling ourselves one little scrap of data at a time, and many of us are doing it likely without considering the implications. And I can't say I know what those implications are, and I'm blogging, using gmail, facebook, and all that other grand stuff, so I'm still participating in it. But I don't know where it's all going, though I could speculate.
Skynet comes to mind.
But you know what, even I am not going to digress into that space. Get me at a pub with a beer in hand like my cousin Joseph and I did on Friday night last week and sure, we can have that talk. In Orebro the pub is The Bishop's Arms, and I'll have an Orebro bitter. You'll find me on the patio later this afternoon.
So yes, I'm not going to turn this into a family album, but I will toss a couple your way, just in case you've skipped all of this.
And this time round they really do not follow any particular order. Sorry about that.
That's some of my family here in Sweden. I'm not Swedish. They won't even make me an honorary Swede. My Aunt Karen is my mom's youngest sister and, while in Ecuador in the 70's met a Swedish photographer name Per. He's my uncle. You can probably fill in the blanks.
This is my cousin Joseph and Jenn's daughter Jocelyn.
I'm eleven years older then Jenn, who is the oldest of the three. My aunt did a fantastic job of getting the family over to Canada every couple of years, so I've had a lot of time with my cousins considering the distance between us. What's really been great about that now is that we actually get to hang out as adults. We've got the comfort of knowing each other for years, and the shared memory that goes along with that, but with still so much to discover every time we get together. Now especially as we make the efforts to lovingly ditch our respective parents some of the time to just go hang out. It's kinda fun.
I didn't know that. Very happy to have discovered it. I mean, it's not that I learned it last week, but it's really only been happening for the past couple of years, so yes, a fairly new discovery. And a welcome one. Family is a very precious thing.
This is Jocelyn suspiciously eyeing her birthday cake. She turned three. Three is a good age.
These guys you may recognize.
If not, then you haven't been paying very close attention and I don't have much left to say to you.
A couple of years ago when much of the Swedish mob, as my aunt refers to them all, came over to Canada, we all met up at my cousin Andrew's families home near Beamsville, along with my mom's other sister, my Aunt Marjorie and Andrew's brother, my cousin Philip and his family.
One of my fondest memories of that weekend was playing basketball with everyone.
Well, one of my fondest memories of our time in Sweden will have been playing football with everyone here. Both kinds. Canadian and European. I don't have any pictures of the games, I was too busy running around like a dog chasing after some form of ball.
For the record, I am incrediby out of shape. Spending a couple of months walking really hasn't done that much. Oh, and I quit the stretching thing ages ago. Need to get back into that.
I'm not sure if watching the trampoline get assembled made me feel any better about Jake then jumping on it. You may recall that from the early days of this trip. Jake though did take a major hand in the assembly and took command of us getting the safety mesh up and secured. He's good at that sort of stuff.
Now, you may recall me mentioning the beautiful lonely places in the world photo montages that show up on a pretty regular basis all over the place. I actually got another one last night that I decided to peruse to see if there was anywhere that I'd be interested in going to see. Anyway, this shot of an old slide in Jenn's backyard is my homage to that whole thing.
See? Pizza. Really big pizza.
Did I mention we took a ride on a steam train?
Well, we did.
This was actually our first full day in Orebro, so last Sunday, and we left Orebro and went to the nearby town of Nora to check out their big weekend market, and to, more importantly, take a ride on this little steam train that does a 20 minute run to another station and back. It's run by volunteers and exists solely so you can ride a steam train.
My uncle Per, as I mentioned already, is a photographer, and also loves trains. This one was his idea. Good idea.
Now, the thing about hanging out with a guy who always has a camera around his neck and a big bag of equipment on his back is that you feel woefully inadequate with your handy dandy point and shoot. But you take more pictures. You almost start to see things differently. You see him get up and go take a picture of something on the wall and you wonder what the heck he is seeing there that you are not. But then, slowly, you start trying to see stuff differently, look for different subjects, frame the world a bit differently. I think it's like something I've mentioned before where, when I sit down at a really good piano, or pick up a really nice violin, I play better. You just kinda step up and try and be the best you can be so that you can maybe approach being worthy of such a fine musical instrument.
Well, taking pictures with my Uncle Per is kinda like that. I will not however subject you to the hundred pictures of the train I took. Like I said, you try to step up, doesn't mean you succeed.
I think there are actually three or maybe four photos I've taken along the way so far that I believe are actually good shots. The bridge one from the end of June when we were on our way to Lunenburg comes to mind.
Maybe I'll do my top five sometime.
Anyway, here's a few of the town of Nora in the meantime.
So yes, it's been mostly a relaxing time so far here in Orebro. It's been a visiting time, a big decision making time, a bit of a difficult time, but ultimately a good time. And my time here isn't done yet. Still plenty of time to hang out with my family and see what mischief my cousins and I can accomplish, and see what sights there are to see. A road trip is planned for tomorrow to go to Lidkoping, just my Aunt, Uncle, and myself. Then it's the weekend, and spending more time with my cousins and their families, Stockholm eventually, and then who knows where. I still need to figure that out.
You know, I really don't know that I've said much in this entry. I wanted to write, as I haven't really written yet about our time here, but I wasn't sure what to say. I don't think I've done the past couple of weeks anywhere near justice. I'm not sure that I could. We've just been doin' "stuff". Normal, everyday, stuff. Hangin' out, playing video games, watching movies, talking, school, frisbee, soccer, mini-golf - though I wasn't at that one. Stuff. I recall advice Stephen Sondheim was given, and that he now shares when he talks or writes about writing musicals: "Don't be afraid not to write a hit." Some of these entries are going to suck. Some of them will be awesome. Now, you don't need to worry as I'm not about to turn this blog into some extension of The Artist's Way, but it is an exercise, and it's important to keep at it lest it fall away. So you're going to suffer through a few B sides along the way I am afraid. Sometimes though I have discovered, there just isn't much to say.
But there is one more thing. I was just reading this through quickly before posting it to make sure I hadn't screwed up their, there, and they're, when I realized their is something I had forgotten to say.
I've received messages from several people since the last blog entry and Facebook post being incredibly supportive of the decisions that Noah and Jake made to head back to Canada, and the decision I made to continue on here. You guys have no idea how thankful I am for that. Seriously. Thank you. I'm not going to pour my heart out here and tell you all what it truly means to me. If you know me then you already know anyway. But if you're wanting me to do so then, like I said earlier, swing by the pub; we can talk about it after we finished up the discussion on Skynet and our future robot overlords.
In the meantime though I am going to put all that kindness to good use and go figure out what next.
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